Kat Dennings, Travie McCoy Talk Filming ‘Renee’

A story by Jamie Tworkowski about a teen named Renee Yohe who dealt with issues like drugs and depression is now the subject of the movie “Renee,” with Kat Dennings set to play the lead role.

Written in 2006, Tworkowski’s story triggered the “To Write Love on Her Arms” campaign, helping to shed light and bring support to other young people struggling with similar issues. In addition to Dennings, Gym Class Heroes frontman Travie McCoy makes a cameo in the flick, which also stars Chad Michael Murray, Rupert Friend and Corbin Bleu.

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When we visited the set of the movie, McCoy told MTV News that his experience on the annual Warped Tour helped him connect to the story at the heart of the film.

“Anybody that’s familiar with Warped Tour, they’ve seen the T-shirts that say ‘To Write Love on Her Arms.’ This movie is about Renee … basically, the girl the charity is about,” he explained. “When Renee puts her headphones on, it’s this sense of escapism and she puts herself into this crazy world that music brings her to.”

Like McCoy, Dennings told us that the music in the film is a key part of telling the inner-monologue of Renee and her pals.

Regarding one particular scene, Dennings explained it revolves around “when [Renee and her friends] get to school and they want to tune out the reality of what school is, ’cause it’s pretty boring and upsetting. To escape it, they all listen to the same song, so we’re gonna see Travie perform and a lot of people dancing, which I’m really excited [about].”

McCoy, who provides the song for the scene, explained his role. “My song, ‘A Kid Again,’ is playing in this high school hallway as [Renee’s] listening to her headphones and walking down the hallway,” he said. “And I kind of pop out from the locker as a student and roll down the hallway, but I’m really not supposed to be there. It’s just her imagination.”

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